Mop-Up Ahead?

This week Douglas MacArthur announced that Seoul had fallen. The city was a prize of primary military, political, psychological and economic importance. It was the climax of a brilliant week for the United Nations in Korea.

MacArthur had predicted that the Reds would find it impossible to try to contain both the Inchon-Seoul invasion beachhead and the Eighth Army's southeastern perimeter. They would have to take their choice. Last week they took it. They fought like tigers for Seoul and melted away in the south. Early this week, Eighth Army spearheads racing west and north from the old perimeter were only 25 miles from a link-up with the southern arm of the Seoul enclave.

At the rate the Eighth Army and the X Corps were approaching each other, a junction seemed almost certain this week. After that, the trend of battle would depend on: 1) how many North Koreans would be caught in the southwestern corner; 2) whether these troops would be able to fight or filter north through the Allied line (the U.S. spearheads driving up from the southeast naturally had no solid line behind them); 3) whether the Communists would be able and willing to fight in the northeastern corner of South Korea, with whatever troops could be regrouped in that area. If they did fight there, MacArthur could choose between a wheeling operation anchored on Seoul to press them back, or cut behind them in an attack eastward from the Seoul enclave, along the 38th parallel, toward the Japan Sea. If he chose the latter, and if it succeeded, the rest of the fighting for South Korea--barring, as always, outside interference--would be a mop-up.

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